Temperature records fall under weight of cold snap
Before warming slightly on Tuesday afternoon, the Big Horn Basin was stuck in a deep freeze with subzero temperatures that led to nonstop windchill advisories and warnings, the cancellation of school events and travel plans, reports of frozen water lines and difficult times for people working outdoors.
The cold snap began when the temperature dipped below zero shortly before midnight on Thursday, Jan. 11. By the time it let up, several communities in the Big Horn Basin had experienced record low temps, according to Lance VandenBoogart, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Riverton.
Take Worland, for example. The NWS has records for that Washakie County community that date to 1960. Three times in the past week, the record low temperature was beaten.
Saturday, Jan. 13 produced a reading of -36, topping the previous record for that day set in 1993.
Sunday, Jan. 14 saw a low of -28, tying the previous record set in 1972.
And on Tuesday, Jan. 16, a low of -35 was recorded. The previous record, a -23, had stood since 1962.
The NWS doesn’t have as much weather information from its Greybull recording station, which has been observing conditions at the South Big Horn County Airport since 1998. But the daily records that did exist prior to this recent cold snap have been retired.
Greybull experienced record lows of -28 on Saturday, Jan. 13 (previous record was -20 in 2017); -24 on Sunday, Jan. 14 (previous record was -24, also in 2017) and -30 on Tuesday, Jan. 16 (previous record was -20 in 2017).
With windchills factored in, the “feels like” temperature during this stretch has ranged from -25 to -45, he said.
While residents have come to expect January to be cold and snowy, VandenBoogart acknowledged that this recent stretch has been extreme.
“We have a lot of cold air coming down from the arctic, the North Pole area,” said VandenBoogart. “With northerly winds bringing that colder air, it tends to settle in the basins. Then you have a clear night like we had last night (Monday) and a lot of the energy from the surface of the earth goes straight up into space. That results in really cold temperatures in the bottom of that basin and in places like Riverton, Worland and Greybull.”
VandenBoogart said he expects very little relief in the coming days. “It will moderate, but still feel cold,” he said. But by this weekend and into the early part of next week, more normal conditions should return to the Big Horn Basin.
While there’s still time for Mother Nature to play catch up, the Greybull area is far behind in terms of precipitation. Since Dec. 1, only a trace of precipitation has been recorded at the airport. Normally it receives about 28-hundredths-of-an-incur between Dec. 1 and mid January, according to VandenBoogart.